QB has accounted for 89 TDs and has Tigers thinking title

CLEMSON, S.C.—Somewhere along the way it got all screwed up. Somewhere between 15 minutes of fame and a lifetime of infamy, we lost what’s real.

Somewhere between chasing a dream and catching your moment, right and wrong have blurred into a mesmerizing maze of copouts and excuses. Because avoiding what could be is much easier than confronting what should be.

And you don’t get lost into the deep and dangerous sea of today’s me-first world. Instead, you see big picture and embrace the enormity of it all.

Everything else is just background noise.

Like that moment on New Year’s Eve, when a packed Georgia Dome was louder than it has ever been, and Clemson was staring at fourth-and-the-season from its own 14. Or that time five years ago, when the new coach told Boyd to find somewhere else to play.

Or all those years growing up in Hampton Roads, Va., with all of that history of bright stars and self-destruction mapping what seemed like a predestined future. All clutter in a world of overlooked self-determination.

If the squeaky wheel really does get the grease, what then do we make of the engine that grinds and never breaks?

“At the end of the day, you’re judged by your character,” Boyd said. “Everything you do, every action you make, you’re accountable for. Whether it’s on the field or off the field, you’re writing your story every day.”

They’re all interwoven, these stories of Tajh Boyd. The 4th-and-16 in the Chik-Fil-A Bowl, and summer days and months spent with DeAndre Hopkins. The pulling of a scholarship offer from then-Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin, and finding the perfect fit at Clemson.

Staying for his senior season at Clemson, and watching the NFL—which for years avoided dual-threat quarterbacks—embrace the new age player and spread-option system and further value his stock in next year’s draft.

“When you live well like Tajh does, when you’re a good person, good things happen,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. “It’s not accidental.”

It wasn’t a fluke that the 4th-and-16 throw to Hopkins kept alive a drive and led to a game-winning, last-second field goal that gave the Tigers their first 11-win season in 31 years. Wasn’t happenstance that the victory over SEC heavyweight LSU legitimized what Clemson has been building under Swinney with Boyd, and now has the perpetually underachieving Tigers talking about winning it all this fall.

That was Boyd last summer, spending day after steamy day throwing with Hopkins; working on timing, building that overlooked intangible of knowing what your teammate will do before he does it. So when Clemson called timeout to choose a play to extend the season, the sideline was completely calm.

“Everyone in the building knew where the ball was going,” Hopkins said.

LSU played a cornerback under Hopkins and a safety above him, and it left Clemson with a near impossible task: make the perfect play against one of the nation’s best defenses to get the first down.

The play called for Hopkins to run a skinny post pattern on the hash and get the ball well beyond the first-down mark. Hopkins and Boyd saw the coverage at the line of scrimmage, and just like they had done in the summer so many times before, they knew where the adjustment would be made.

Said Boyd: “After all we’d been through, I felt like I could throw it to him with my eyes closed.”

These things just don’t happen. Boyd doesn’t touch the ball 76 times (50 passes, 26 rushes) against an elite defense without committing a turnover. It’s all part of the grind; it’s all a composition of a boy raised by military parents who can’t comprehend excuses.

Your Pop Warner coach doesn’t want you to play quarterback? Show him why you should.

No one ever makes it big out of Hampton Roads and sustains greatness? Show them why you can.

Kiffin says you’re not a fit for his offense? Find a place where you are.

Along the way, you might just run into someone who thinks exactly the same way. That Boyd found Swinney, the ultimate chicken salad out of chicken scrap coach, makes all the pieces fit.

It was Swinney whose father was an alcoholic and left his wife to raise her sons. It was Swinney who lived in poverty as a teen, was a walk-on wide receiver at Alabama and eventually earned a scholarship.

It was Swinney who grinded away as an assistant coach, only to be the man holding the interim bag when Tommy Bowden quit midseason in 2008. Never a head coach, never even a coordinator—but Clemson finished that season 4-3 and Swinney was given the job permanently.

A month later, Swinney signed Boyd, who redshirted as a freshman and has since accounted for 89 touchdowns (73 passing) and given long-suffering Clemson fans reason to believe that the first national championship since 1981 could be on the way.

“We’re the same people,” Boyd said. “He never thought he was entitled to anything, and neither did I. The last thing I want is to accept a handout. You do what you have to do to make it.”

Maybe that’s why Boyd doesn’t understand today’s athlete. Why he can’t understand those who ignore the gift and focus on the unintended consequences brought about by poor decisions.

He sees Aaron Hernandez do the unthinkable despite getting paid millions to play a game. He sees all those before him from Hampton Roads—Michael and Marcus Vick, Allen Iverson, Percy Harvin, Ronald Curry—flaming out or struggling to hold on.

He watches mercurial Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, whom he met this offseason at an event in Portland, and can’t understand the disconnect.

“I think Johnny’s a good guy, he just has to understand the position he’s in,” Boyd said. “It’s a privilege to play this game. I don’t want to waste a day; I don’t want to complain. There’s nothing to complain about. A lot of us live in the moment, but those moments have actions that will impact your future.”

Early one summer morning, after Boyd led another workout at Clemson, he faced another one of those moments when he met a young boy at the football offices who had come by for an autograph. This wasn’t just any fan. This, Boyd says, is the reason more young athletes should recognize the difference between we and me.

“He was just a child, and he had cancer behind his eye,” Boyd said. “He’s worried about getting a football signed by me more than anything else. I mean, how blessed am I to be in that position? I don’t want to go through life with any regrets. If you really want something, you have to give it everything you’ve got.”